I’m starting to feel the urge to get outside and tidy up my garden. There’s a creeping temptation at this time of year to start cutting back and preparing for new growth. Crocosmia clumps look awful, brown and floppy. There are ugly, black, rotted acanthus leaves, and flat ferns. Honesty seedheads are shredded. And there are dead leaves and fallen branches everywhere. But I’m going… Read more →
Tag: wildlife
A Bad Case Of Winter Denial
As usual, I’m finding the transition from autumn to winter a tricky one. The clocks went back but I’m struggling to accept that the growing season is over. I have not yet wrapped my banana tree up with fleece to protect it from the cold that is inevitably coming. I failed to plant garlic cloves and broad beans in the raised beds before… Read more →
How To Build A Bug Hotel
It was a gorgeous day today and there was nowhere I’d rather have been than in my garden. Well, truthfully, I’d rather have been relaxing on a beach lounger, listening to the lapping waves of the Indian Ocean, but that wasn’t an option. I sat in the sun and watched the bees that were busily collecting nectar from the pulmonaria… Read more →
How To Make A Mini Frog Pond
I got a text from my mum yesterday informing me that her pond was full of wrestling frogs. I think I can safely assume that “wrestling” was my mum’s euphemism for “having sex”. It’s that time of year when all sorts of creatures are busy making babies. The blue tits in my garden are frantically nesting, male blackbirds are squabbling… Read more →
January: What To Do Now
Winter landed here in a big way last week and we woke up to some stunningly beautiful frosts, the ground sparkly white, and plants and trees coated in a thick dusting of frosty crystals. I couldn’t resist wasting five vital minutes of school run time taking photos! It’s milder this week, the sun is out and we’ve got our blue, blue… Read more →
How To Bring Birds To Your Garden
It’s the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of this month (January 30th-31st). Do order a free pack and join in. This annual event is a wonderful excuse to sit (inside or outside) and look at your garden for an hour, while you watch and count the birds. I love having a garden full of birds. Watching birds hop… Read more →
D is for Digging (and Depression)
Digging is powerful therapy for me, and I could certainly do with some of that at the moment. Depression wouldn’t be in most people’s gardening alphabet. But perhaps there are more of us depressed gardeners out there than I think. It’s at this time of year, in mid-winter, that I often feel bad. The ghost at the door hovers closer and… Read more →
How To Build A Hogitat
Inspired by a recent newsletter from the RSPB, I decided we would use the next dry day to build a hedgehog house in the garden. So today, we fleeced up and mustered outside, to build a warm habitat for our hogs to hibernate in over winter. Hedgehog numbers are worryingly in decline in the UK: “Our beloved hedgehog has had… Read more →
Bambooserie and cardoons
We had a lovely, slightly damp, time at the Bishop’s House Garden in Norwich on Sunday afternoon. I’ve been meaning to visit all summer. It’s a hidden, walled garden, positioned right in the heart of the city, near the cathedral. Unfortunately it’s not always open to the public and you can only visit on occasional open days. Yesterday was a… Read more →
Up The Garage Wall (Part 1)
Everyone has a part of their garden that drives them up the wall (forgive the pun). For some time, I have been searching for a way to disguise this mock stone, garage wall. Whenever I look out of the kitchen window, I think how lovely my garden is, and what a shame that this grim, grey thing has to be in… Read more →